Winchester Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: An extremely loose story surrounding the real-life Winchester mansion and its supposed haunting.

Review: "Winchester" is about as meh as meh can possibly come. This is a generic haunted house movie with no original ideas or scares despite drawing inspiration from an actual location. While the set designs are nice, and there was plenty of potential, the film feels too modernized instead of utilizing the 1906 setting. What should have been a classic ghost story turns into an absolute mess with predictable plot twists and contrivances that stretch any sense of plausibility. I mean, they actually defeat the evil ghost by shooting it. Yeah. So there's that.

The actual house offers countless ideas for a horror movie; it's hard to believe no one has ever tried to do the story justice in some shape or form. You might think they'd deliver here but you'd be wrong. For the most part, the house is just a prop and background dressing when it should feel like a character unto itself. Hell, even garbage like "The Haunting" remake understood this concept. Nah, screw that, we need to make room for a possessed kid character. Oh how I love little kid characters in horror movies! And goddamn is that kid ugly--like Chucky actually did become human in a Good Guy Doll. The rest of the characters are nearly as bland and cliched. BIG SHOCK...that one character lurking in the background not interacting with anything or anyone is actually a ghost! Can't be! No way! In fairness, at least the revelation was a good jump scare. Well, jump scares are all this movie has to offer really. There are maybe two scenes that could be scary in their own way, but the rest are just BOO at the screen. And two of these scenes are about a roller skate going by the screen. Yeaahhhh...a roller skate. I guess it's better than a cat.

Of course the writers decided to make Sarah Winchester some kind of benevolent medium trying to help ghosts move on to the afterlife. And, due to next level shenanigans, the main guy, Eric, can see ghosts after being shot by his wife who also conveniently haunts the mansion. There is a plot point about how Eric was dead for 3 minutes and this just really fucking annoyed me. Dead for 3 minutes...as in clinical death? This wasn't even a phenomenon in those days. And who the hell was there to monitor this time of death and resuscitation? What, did they call 9-1-1 in 1900?! Yeah, just let me whip out my telegraph, big boy. Did the paramedics show up too?! In fact, how the hell did Eric even survive this situation since they never explain it? This plot point is not befitting of the era whatsoever since that level of emergency care ain't happenin' in those days. After this, Eric somehow salvages the bullet, that didn't splinter thankfully, and creates a ghost-love infused bullet that is later used to "kill" the evil ghost. By the way, the evil ghost sure was thinking progressive since he went apeshit and blamed the gun manufacturer for his brothers being killed in the Civil War. HAH! Yeaaah, okaaaay. What kind of stupid shit is this? Yeah, an anti-gun plot point in the fucking 1880s. Sure. Plus, I love how he just goes off to heaven, hell, or Kayako-land after being shot by a magic bullet. Oh, and he caused the 1906 earthquake?! Whaaat? Man, fuck this movie.

What a waste. They would have been better off making a found-footage film about punks breaking into the Winchester house as zany antics unfold. Or, if you want to just make up bullshit, and say "based on actual events," then just set the plot immediately after Sarah Winchester died. Have people taking care of the estate and realizing it really was haunted. Have characters actually get lost in the mansion--show us this maze! Make the house feel alive. Have real tension and scares instead of roller skates and little kids. Forget dumb plot twists...just stick to a story of people getting in way over their heads. This could have easily been a memorably scary movie but, instead, is mediocre at every turn with a laughable twist dragged down by contrivances galore. This type of trash is made for the rental market only. Save your money.

Notable Moment: Those stupid roller skate jump scares. Once was dumb enough, but to do it twice was embarrassingly bad. And was this supposed to have some significance to the ghost? Hell if I know.

Final Rating: 4.5/10